7 ms·
After a two year period of watching my boss interact with people, I can confirm that this method works extremely well. He is a "natural", in the sense that he
by enraged_camel 9y ago
After a two year period of watching my boss interact with people, I can confirm that this method works extremely well.
He is a "natural", in the sense that he can form close bonds with people incredibly quickly. At first I thought he was using some sort of secret strategy, but after a while I noticed that he was simply sharing personal details about himself (which the article refers to as "self-disclosure") without being prompted, which encourages, and in fact compels, the other side to reciprocate.
Here is an example conference call conversation from two weeks ago, in fact, in which we were chatting with a potential client to schedule a meeting. Bob is my boss:
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Bob: Okay. Let's have an in-person meeting next week. What day works best for you?
Client: How about Thursday at 2?
Bob: Sounds great. You know, I'm glad you didn't say Wednesday because I have to be with my two little girls that day, and I definitely could not miss that. They mean the world to me.
Client: Oh yeah, I understand. In fact I can relate... I have a daughter myself!
--
And then when we actually met in person this past Thursday, the topic of their daughters was a natural conversation point.
In contrast, I tend to be fairly reserved when it comes to sharing personal info. I like to stay on topic and dislike what I perceive as derails. The above conversation for me would have gone like this:
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Me: Okay. Let's have an in-person meeting next week. What day works best for you?
Client: How about Thursday?
Me: Sounds great. See you on Thursday at 2 PM.
--
Similar, but also very different.
- mettamage 9y agoAfter having read about self-disclosure I started doing this and never looked back. Also I forgot that I had it from reading a psychology experiment. I've learned that it mostly works. In some cases though people see you as someone who doesn't always say something relevant. What also works (more specifically) is: you share a certain secret about you, and if that person has a similar secret you get to hear it as well. At one night, I was with a traveler and we were both in a country we both didn't live in. We self-disclosed quite a bit and then agreed to tell each other every juicy detail of our lives without ever seeing each other again. We poured our hearts out to each other and we told each other all kinds of secrets that we told no one else. I learned a lot about life that night :) Self-disclosure is awesome. You give people the opportunity to relate back. And people, in general, are nice.
- roceasta 9y agoDon't want to question the value of your experience but I couldn't help noticing that your example and enraged_camel's examples all take place in the context of (mild) danger and risk. Employer-employee; employee-client; travel abroad. Could it be that shared adversity is the key to bonding? Personal revealings would then follow gradually as a natural consequence. In this view the best way to make friends would be to go to high-school together, get stuck in an airport for 2 days, watch a horror movie, share a rock-climbing accident, etc. Mostly circumstances one doesn't have much control over, admittedly!
- supercoder 9y agoYeah some of my best friends are the ones who I've focred to go with me to an airport for 2 days. Not sure if they can say the same though
- manyxcxi 9y agoI think there's something to that. Most of my adult friendships with people that started in a professional setting were with people who I worked with on very stressful projects. Lots of hours together, working very closely, gallows humor, and revealing personal details. There are about five or six people from a particularly stressful project that I talk to on no less than monthly basis, very personally catching up, and we're across 4 states and 5 cities.
- morgante 9y agoThere is definitely evidence for shared adversity being helpful for bonding, but I think it's a stretch to somehow say employment is adversity. By that logic, pretty much every interaction we have is through shared adversity. (It's true that I've had some amount of shared adversity with all my close friends though.)
- accountyaccount 9y agoThe state of being can be considered shared adversity.
- deleted 9y ago
- camillomiller 9y agoGood luck doing that in Germany without being seeing as a weird egomaniac
- ams6110 9y agoYeah I'm not German (except by ancestry) and I get really uncomfortable when conversations go like that. Why is this guy trying to convince me he's such a great dad? What's his angle with that? I would definitely not take something like that as a sincere "personal disclosure" from someone I'd never met. I'd take it as more like a greasy salesman tactic.
- enraged_camel 9y agoI guess if you're a cynical person you will look for an "angle" in everything people say or do. Living life like that must be miserable.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kome 9y agoI agree with you.
- Danihan 9y agoOr it's extremely soothing because you're never surprised by anyone's selfish intentions...
- enraged_camel 9y agoI don't see how second-guessing everyone's motivations and looking for hidden motives in every single thing they say or do can be "soothing", but to each his own.
- icebraining 9y ago
- gpawl 9y agoYour boss almost certainly learned that trick from something like Dale Carnegie/Carnegey and practiced it. Oversharing with strangers (bragging about loving your children?!) is a classic manipulative tactic.
- Bakary 9y agoIs it bad to be manipulative if it results in closer bonds and thus a richer life?
- randallsquared 9y agoBob's statement seems troubling if you take it as meaningful rather than sales patter. There's an inherent conflict between the implications in "What day works best for you?" and "I definitely could not miss that. They meant the world to me." From the client's perspective, if he reflects on that conversation at all, the question naturally arises: "What if I had said Wednesday?" Would Bob have skipped spending time with his girls, meaning that his actual statement was a lie? Would Bob have demurred and suggested another day, because the implicit offer of any day next week was false? What other things will Bob try to slide past the client? The chance for this sales process to be collaborative and mutually beneficial seems to have been weakened, given that the client has evidence that Bob will say whatever he has to say to make the sale... If it's not obvious, I am not in sales. :/
- icebraining 9y agoI have to say, it only seems troubling because you're reading an offer that isn't actually there.